AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week, lawmakers here in California voted to reform a powerful, decades-old environmental law. Loosening the law's protections has been a goal of housing advocates for years. They say the changes will help address the state's affordable housing shortage and homelessness crisis. But some environmentalists warn that the changes will have unintended consequences. Climate reporter Laura Klivans of member station KQED in San Francisco joins us now. Hi, Laura.
LAURA KLIVANS, BYLINE: Hi.
CHANG: OK, so just start us off by reminding us what is in this California law, exactly.
KLIVANS: Well, the law was created in 1970 to combat sprawl and pollution and protect places like forests and waterways. It's called the California Environmental Quality Act - or CEQA. It meant when you wanted to build, you'd go through a rigorous review process that takes a bunch of things into account, like the air pollution your building would add, the noise, the way it affects wildlife and how much energy it uses. It's one of the strictest kinds of environmental review laws in the country. The problem, its critics say, was that over time, the law became more complicated and very lengthy and gave people a tool to stop projects they didn't like, even if their concerns had nothing to do with the environment.
CHANG: OK, so what were the changes that the state legislature made this week?
KLIVANS: The reforms hugely streamline building processes. They make it easier to build housing in urban centers. And they'll exempt several categories of projects from environmental review, things like farmworker housing, childcare centers and health clinics. Housing advocates and experts are excited about the changes. Alex Horowitz directs housing policy at The Pew Charitable Trusts. He says one of the surprising unintended consequences of CEQA was that it actually made sprawl worse. Because people complain more about building in cities and towns, those who wanted to build homes have found it easier to do so in far-flung places like forests or wetlands.
ALEX HOROWITZ: So the passage of these bills makes it easier to build housing in California. And it actually makes it easier to build housing in existing cities and towns, where new housing does not need to be located in fire-prone areas, in flood-prone areas.
CHANG: OK. But as we mentioned, not everyone agrees that the changes to this law were a good idea, right?
KLIVANS: Right. There isn't much pushback about streamlining building in existing cities, but the new law also allows what are called advanced manufacturing facilities to build in places zoned for industrial use. These are things like semiconductors and nanotechnology.
CHANG: OK.
KLIVANS: Here's Francis Tinney, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.
FRANCES TINNEY: That kind of manufacturing creates major hazards for communities. And there's no setbacks. It can be near homes. It can be near schools. There's no limits on that.
KLIVANS: I did talk to Chris Elmendorf, who's a land use and housing law expert at the University of California Davis. And he pushed back on that fear a bit, saying most manufacturing facilities would still have to go through other kinds of environmental reviews. Now, environmentalists are also concerned about some other aspects of the law, like one that they say will no longer protect important habitats for endangered species and another that will pause updates to building standards, which largely are meant to bring down planet-warming pollution.
CHANG: Right. Well, again, this is a California state law. Do you think it could influence more states to pass similar laws around the country?
KLIVANS: Well, according to Alex Horowitz, the housing expert, we do see reforms in one state influence others. But we should note this is part of a bigger trend already happening. Numerous states have been passing laws that remove barriers to building. Horowitz says we saw a record number of them in 2025. Sometimes they're based on environmental review. We saw that in Minnesota last year. Sometimes they're based on other things, like in Texas. It's now easier to build because they've reformed something called a protest petition, which neighbors would use to block development.
CHANG: That is Laura Klivans from KQED. Thank you so much, Laura.
KLIVANS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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